Preparing your QuickBooks Inventory for Autotask Integration

We are helping a number of IT Professionals integrate their Autotask with QuickBooks and have some tips for you if you are planning the same.   I will try to add QuickBooks cleanup tips here on a regular basis, as well as Autotask tips and eventually other financial management tools.  Please follow us on twitter at:  http://twitter.com/ABCSolutionsFL for more tips.

The most difficult part about the Autotask-QuickBooks integration will be your inventory.  Many IT Professionals set up their Autotask (AT) and start tracking the items they sell to customers, for instance a router might be in AT as “router” and the exact model with serial number will be in the Customer’s account.  Then, they have a more detailed item in QuickBooks (QB) to track the item coming in and going out.  You purchase the router, you receive the router into inventory, then when you sell the router, it reduces your inventory count and places the proper cost in your Cost of Goods Sold account.

When you are preparing your Autotask for the QuickBooks integration, your inventory item names MUST match EXACTLY.  Same name, same spacing, same punctuation.  If they do not match, and you import your invoices from AT to QB, you will have two items with similar names, one with an overstated quantity by at least 1, and the other a Non-Inventory Part.  Autotask will create an inventory item for any item it does not recognize during the transfer.  WARNING:  Autotask will create the item as a NON-INVENTORY part.  Non-inventory parts do not track quantities.  You must change this inventory type to be an Inventory Part to track quantities on hand.

So, if you have a long list of inventory items in Autotask and an even longer list in QuickBooks and the two do not match, what can you do?  Well, you only have one choice – match them up.  Here are some options:

1.)  Use your Autotask inventory list, create a fake invoice including one of every item and import it into QuickBooks.  Then, once it is transferred into QuickBooks, delete the invoice.  The invoice will be deleted, but not the inventory items it created.  Change the Non-Inventory Part to Inventory Part.  Then, merge your QuickBooks item with the item created by Autotask.  To do that, rename the QB item to match exactly the AT-created item.  If you are not asked to merge the two items, you did not match them correctly.  Remove the QB item from being a sub-item if necessary.

2.)  Print your QuickBooks item list in its entirety.  Then enter the list into Autotask exactly as it appears in QuickBooks.  Autotask does not track quantities, so you only need to enter the item and description.  Remove any Autotask items that you no longer want used to avoid your staff using an incorrect item.  Then, test the integration with QuickBooks by creating an invoice with each item to make sure they match up correctly with QuickBooks.

Remember that with each inventory item in Autotask, you will need to properly map it to a QuickBooks item.  Follow the Autotask mapping guide to accomplish this correctly.  Call on us if we can be of any assistance!